


The Winter

by Trancemaster



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-10-04
Updated: 2014-10-08
Packaged: 2018-02-19 19:36:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,970
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2400365
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Trancemaster/pseuds/Trancemaster
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Possible spoilers for the books.  </p>
<p>Arya is in Braavos at the House of Black and White.  Sansa is still at the Eyrie.</p>
<p>This picks up after Arya's TWOW chapter, "Mercy," but for all intents and purposes it picks up right where the show left off after season 4 missing only a few specific elements of her training, and Sansa's descent from the Eyrie.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. MYA I

**Author's Note:**

> I have 10 outlined chapters and part of at least 8 written (4 or 5 completed). They warp as I write so it takes a long time to make sure any changes are reflected through the entire story.
> 
> Let me know if there are questions... when I write, I tend to think everyone knows what I know about what I am writing, despite the fact that I am trying to be pretty layered here. So hit me up with questions, then I can describe better in the story and prevent future problems.

MYA I

A dark shadow flashed across a weathered stone cropping on a shadow laden catacomb.

Of course, this would be what the people of Braavos would see as one of their many temples.  What a street urchin would see as their coven.  What a blind beggar would see as their nest.  A place where anyone could be lost but to find a thing would truly be a gift.

She waded down a dripping damp set of stairs.  There hadn’t been a rain in weeks that she remembered, but the stairs were notably damp.  As soon as her sodden feet hit the slate they sank into the muck.   _A bloody muddy mess_ _of my shoes, as always.  I suppose this is just my lot in life._

Then, a pull on her soles.  A very slight pull.   _There’s something thick here in the muck, surely a bed of running dampened soil, a sticky slug, a leech?_  She looked down and was not surprised at the revelation of blood, but was startled by the sheer volume.   _A great deal of blood.  More than one body’s worth, perhaps.  A few bodies, a handful, a dozen, a score, a gross, hundreds, mayhaps thousands of bodies, drained of blood._   _It’s just the red sap of a Weirwood tree,_ she told herself, even as the blood splashed her ankles and the unmistakable metallic odor of the blood assaulted her heightened senses.  

Somehow the blood splashing almost seemed a needy gesture as she continued to ignore it and concentrate on her single path.  It seemed she trudged downwards for miles.   _At the pace I’m walking, a few hundred feet for all I know._  The decline was as steep as it could be without prompting a downwards tumble to oblivion.   _With this sap in my shoes, I’d never fall more than a few feet_.  She was elated when the path leveled out and planks of timber replaced the stone and started to lead back upwards, but it seemed to be consistently veering to the right, to the extent that she felt as if she was going in circles

_ Gods help me to find what I need.  Any of you, please.  The Many Faced God, the Seven, even the Old Gods, please tell me why I was compelled by the kindly man to be here! _

She’d become very accustomed to the presence of blood during her many missions.  Despite her familiarity with the sight, smell, sound, feel, and taste of blood, it was nice when the blood began sinking into the planks as she ascended the wooden incline.   _Where the hell am I going?  This timber is some of the most solid I’ve ever felt.  Was this built by Brandon the Builder himself?_

The blood subsided as it seeped into the wood.  The splashes were replaced by a sticky but very solid continuation of the timber path.   _I’m turning right, right, right. I’ve seen the impossible before, and this is just that._

A solitary ray of light shone through the cavern from above, possibly fifty feet up.  Her eyes were temporarily blinded by the bright white light of the winter sun.  It was then that she realized she’d been able to see in the complete darkness.  A crack in a bed of stone above a cavern this deep was rare, and she took the opportunity soak in the light on her cheeks as she let her eyes adjust.  Looking up at the light, she beheld an outcrop of a silvery white type of Stone she had never seen.  In a moment, the the realization dawned on her that the wall to her right was a Weirwood.  She then realized that what she thought was a crack in the rock was an opening in the roots of another Weirwood.  The tree on the surface above had roots that were loose enough that the sun was able to shine through them.  

Shining onto a grove of Weirwoods below.  It seemed unlikely as almost anything she’d ever seen.  It was only then she saw she was in fact walking on a path cut into a grove of winding and interlinked Weirwoods.   _How on earth could someone have carved a path this intricate into an impossible tangle of an underground grove of Weirwoods?  This is a forest!_

Mya knew the hardy trees of northern origin could survive with little light, but a there was no way the stairway from the tomb from which she’d entered could provide water for such a large number of trees.  There hadn’t been rain.  She remembered the first feel of dampness as she had descended, but had thought nothing of it.   _I knew it was blood but I could only feel sap, an acknowledgement, even an acceptance and eagerness for the blood to seep into the wood.  It was not timber.  It was not my acknowledgement.  It wasn’t my feeling of eagerness. It was the trees.  I had never felt them like this in the Godswood of WInterfell...What is Winterfell?_

A strange feeling once again flowed through her as an understanding and amazing feeling of power coursed through the cave.  She could almost see the life force, even in the dim light.  This was the feeling that Blind Beth could get at times. A flash of sensory data from another vantage-point, always that of a weak-minded animal.   _I just felt a flash from no one and nothing._   _Impossible.  The faces on the Weirwoods of the Godswood were surely carved by the ancestral worshippers of the Old Gods.  Godswood?_

_ The trees below the surface subsist purely on the blood of the dead?  If all of the Weirwoods are connected like this, they could be the oldest and hardest living being in all of the known planet.  If they are capable of housing a consciousness, hosting another living being, allowing one to transport their mind to another place...  They are the most omniscient form of life on our planet.   _

_ The blood of the dead.  Not the living, or I am in grave in danger.   _ She shivered as she turned it over again in her head.

** This time, Arya’s mind was so overtaken by the incursion of primordial spirit that she had to lay down. **

Mya awoke having received what she came for.  The way out was strange enough, but simple enough.  She continued through the flattened brambles to ascend towards the light.  At not one point was the impossible path broken.  She continued to climb towards the light on roots which seemed to be wrapped about with such regularity and order that it was as easy as climbing a ladder. When she breached the surface, she was so far away as to be out of eyesight from the tomb-like structure she had entered.  She was close to the temple, under a Weirwood she had never noticed upon her arrival.   _I just wasn’t looking for what I should have been looking for._

She took one more look into the opening of the roots below.  Pure Black.  The White light of the sun was comforting after her time in the cave, and she sat below the tree to enjoy it.  Even with her eyes closed, the bright sun shone.  It seemed she’d just closed them when the sun began to set and she realized she’d been gone the entire day.  She sat for another few minutes and enjoyed the sunset.  

Just as fast as darkness fell in the Winter in Westeros, it quickly fell here in Essos.  She noted the jet black sky was sprinkled with stars, infinitely small white lanterns.  She looked up once more through the branches and leaves of the Weirwood.  Although everything should have been only Black and White, with her heightened sense of sight, the leaves of the Weirwood still appeared red.  She stood finally, and took note that the branches and trunk still shone as if with their own pearl White luminescence.

Mya walked back towards where her quarters were.  Before entering, she mentally put on the face of No One,  taking one more glance at the the sky.  Blackness could not even describe the winter night.  As if a reminder of the passage of time and the promise of another day, the stars had shifted.  The white shifting stars could only promise another day, not what it would bring.   _In my very heart, I know that tomorrow I’ll be sent away on a task for the Many Faced God.  But not today._

She fell immediately into a deep, dreamless sleep as soon as she hit the hay.


	2. NO ONE I

The wolves fed ravenously as she watched, a queen in her own right…  She’d had her fill.  She was awakened to a soft breeze and the smell of fresh parchment on her bedside table, as her senses slowly dulled to those of a human. _I’m no one.  No one doesn’t have dreams._

Neither the kindly man, nor any messenger of any kind was present in the room.  She picked up the parchment on her bedside table and reviewed her target, a poor Bastard from the Vale.  She sat up with elation, as it had been weeks since anything besides a basic daily training session, and she welcomed the distraction.  A deep breath propelled her to her feet and out the door. 

Without a second thought, she was at the harbor and on a ship, scrubbing the deck… Arie the orphan was a hard worker when he needed to be, and once he put in some hard labor he’d be able to negotiate a smaller fare with the captain.  The trip went quickly for No One, as Arie kept busy with chores, but at night in her dreams, she was a wolf again, a flood of memories crashing against the side of the ship.

** A She-Wolf with auburn fur.  Auburn hair, she realized, learning embroidery, like a proper Lady. When she got closer to observed the needle work, the Needle grew uncontrollably.  The sound of sword training and a He-Wolf with her own features.  Then a Snow white wolf with red eyes, hunting with deadly silence.   _Wights, they were.  Dead folk._  No one she knew.  She knew no one. **

When she awoke, a list of names was scrolling through her mind.   _No one doesn’t have a list._ _But if she could have a target now, why couldn’t she acknowledge other possible targets? “Cersei Lannister, Jaime Lannister, The Mountain, The Hound…”_

She paused in acknowledgement, knowing that The Hound would be no longer on the list.  She hadn’t killed him when she had the chance, but that was only because she wanted him to suffer more, not an act of Mercy.  By now he was surely taken as a feast for the crows, his corpse many leagues away.

She muddled through the rest of her list until she reached the final name, the one she was given on parchment. _**“ Alayne Stone.”** _ The last name echoed satisfyingly off the stone walls, as if it were an entire sisterhood of No Ones on the mission together.  The satisfaction of company felt rather like a delicacy and she knew she’d be going off alone again soon.

She stepped onto the saltpans, unsure of how she knew the place by name.  A fortuitous caravan arrived at that moment.  Arie had a few coppers on him, a silver in his britches, and a stag in his shoe, if it was called for.  Coppers did, as he wasn’t a burden and would work his way, shoveling hay, shit, or gold for that matter. _ As long as he got his way._

The bloody gate had been called impregnable, but the person who declared the impregnability was a fool.  The bloody gate was a bloody farce, and Cat of the Canals entered unnoticed and by evening she was eating dinner with the rest of the kitchen staff.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> What do you all think of the dream sequence and her new target?
> 
> I actually think GRRM might pull something like this with her targeting a sibling without realizing it. Pay attention to capitalization and italics, I always try to include foreshadowing, back-shadowing, easter eggs, and dual meanings.


End file.
